Well, inauguration day has come and gone, and with that, America has gained a new first family. As I scrolled through various social media sights, I saw a mix of posts both for and against the day's events. However, as I continued scrolling, there was one particular set of posts that kept coming back to my mind. The post included a link to an article that had screenshots of various tweets written about the new first child Barron Trump. While reading this article, I could help but think of the times that similar attacks were made on former first children Malia and Sasha Obama. (I must warn readers, some of the screenshots I took might be shocking).
Reading articles like the ones linked above and seeing the vicious comments some people leave on social media made me wonder: why? Why do people attack the children of people involved in politics? Do they not like the policies or personal choices of the children's parents? Do they genuinely dislike the children? Is there some other factor motivating the hate such as racism/sexism/ableism?
First and foremost, no matter what the reasoning is behind these attacks, people need to remember: these are children we are talking about!! Let's be real, if it wasn't for the slight anonymity that the internet gave people, would they really say these things to children who were 10, 15, or even 17? In other words, would these commenters really call a 10-year-old a "future rapist" or a 15-year-old an "antichrist Muslim" to their face?
In my opinion, many of these comments are things that should be unacceptable to say to full-fledged adults, let alone to children. So I know this might be asking a lot of people, but could we just maybe give them a break? Try to think back to when you were 10 or 15 or 17. Do you remember how frustrating and awkward it was to grow up? Do you remember getting bored when your parents dragged you along to an adult party or how stressed you were applying to college? Those are probably similar feelings to what Barron and Malia were feeling. And yet when Barron tried to entertain himself by playing peek-a-boo with his nephew, people around the country felt the need to comment on it. When Malia was accepted into Harvard, instead of getting to feel pride in making it into such a prestigious school, she had to face comments from people she'd never met saying that she only made it into Harvard because of her father's name or the color of her skin.
I'm not naive. I know that there are always going to be a fair amount of trolls and cyber bullies out there. However, these kids shouldn't have to miss out on enjoying the aspects of childhood we sometimes take for granted just because their fathers' have the highest political title in our country. Now I know that this has been more of just a rambling rather than a well thought-out argument, but in all honesty, I never thought I would have to write about being nice to children. To me, it's just common sense to not stoop so low and to be kind to children. So for once, could we all just agree to stop dragging minors into the problems of their parents? And by this I mean actually stop, not just say we're going to put them "off-limits" to such low comments and then continue to make these posts on every article written about the first family. If you are genuinely upset with the person in power then so be it, but please keep your comments about their children to yourselves.
